6 NOTORYCTES. 
experienced considerable difficulty in the selection of such char- 
acters as appear to be most suitable for the purpose. Dr. Stirling, 
in his papers quoted above, though at present the only scientist 
who has had the opportunity of examining the anatomical charac- 
ters, offers no suggestion as to the definite place which it should 
take in the zoological system, and I have therefore endeavored to 
intercalate it among those forms to which it seems to me to make 
the nearest approach from a structural point of view. The con- 
clusion at which I have arrived, after an exhaustive study of 
Dr. Stirling’s pamphlet, is that in this animal we have at last 
obtained a definite connecting link between the Monotremes and 
Marsupials. In the present initial state of our knowledge it 
would, in my judgment, be presumptuous to class otoryctes 
among the Monotremes proper, nevertheless several of our leading 
naturalists incline to the opinion that its affinities are closer to 
these Mammals than to the Marsupials; at present, however, I 
prefer to look upon it as an aberrant Polyprotodont. If the 
former view be correct we have here an adult Monotreme possess- 
ing fully developed teeth, and it must not be lost sight of that in 
Ornithorhynchus, as previously mentioned (vide p. 2), teeth are 
developed in both jaws until the animal is fully one-third grown, 
though our knowledge of the early life of this latter animal is not 
sufficient to enable us to decide whether these teeth are functional 
or otherwise ; it is, however, on this character, and so far as I can 
determine with the slender means at my disposal, on this character 
alone, that I base my opinion of its polyprotodont affinities; the 
absence of canine teeth, if I am correct in my suggestion that 
those considered by Dr. Stirling to be canines are respectively 
the fourth upper and third lower incisors, militates against: its 
position as a typical Polyprotodont, but strengthens its position 
as a true connecting link between the Monorremata and Poty- 
PROTODONTIA; if on the other hand Dr. Stirling has taken the 
correct view of the nature of the teeth in question, my contention 
as to the polyprotodont character of Motoryctes is materially 
strengthened; in any case our knowledge is so limited, and our lack | 
of information as to its milk dentition, if any, so absolute, that it 
would not be wise to separate it from the polyprotodont Mammals. 
Further the semirudimentary nature of the pouch, which wholly, 
or at any rate partially, disappears when not in use, points to a 
connection on the one hand with Myrmecobius and Phascologale, 
and on the other hand with the Prorotueria ; Dr. Stirling 
informs me in literis that a pair of minute mammary elevations are 
present, situated near the corners of the posteriorly expanded pouch. 
The form of the feet and the character of the horny shield on the 
snout also ally Votoryctes to Echidna. Putting aside these external 
characters, we have not far to seek in the skeleton for contir- 
matory evidence of its affinity to the Monotremes, the considerable 
